from the seems-like-a-good-idea dept

We've pointed out in the past that people seem to really like it when the press actually fact checks, rather than simply acts as a stenographer to record what everyone has to say about an issue. But, of course, fact checking is time consuming and difficult work -- and, in the end, no professional fact checker is ever going to be able to fact check anything as effectively as a wider group of knowledgeable people. It's one of the reasons why we've always considered this site to be a discussion and community site, rather than a "journalism" site. We post our opinions based on what information is out there, and we fully expect an engaged audience to discuss things in the comments, adding additional details, or flat out correcting factual errors in the initial reports we relied on. It's part of the overall process.

And, now it looks like some news organizations are looking to test out a more formalized version of this. The Poynter Institute and FactCheck.org are testing out a new system that crowdsources fact checking via its new Truthsquad effort. The idea is pretty much what you'd expect. The idea is to tap into the wider wisdom of the crowd to see if they can help break down various claims from politicians to see whether or not they're truthful or not. This isn't a total free-for-all, of course. It's simply asking the community for input and evidence.